1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to test tool development, and particularly to a test tool development infrastructure that facilitates creation of test tools.
2. Description of Background
Test tools are used to verify the correct functioning of new software and modifications to existing software. Verifying the correctness of software may involve numerous tasks ranging from ensuring coding syntax through successful compilation, to checking the execution results by examining the output of a software program. Developing test tools requires relatively extensive programming skills in languages such as C, Java, or Perl. This tends to result in a dedicated group of people focused on building test tools and another group of people who use the test tools. There is difficulty in becoming proficient with the languages with traditional programming languages like C, Perl or Java. Further, test tools in these languages are more difficult to dynamically modify, as another user would need to understand the code logic. Traditional programming languages such as Kourne Shell or DOS have similar drawbacks, and are also not platform independent. The STAF/STAX platform has a difficult learning curve, as it still requires to understand/learn a new programming language.
There is a need in the art for a test tool development infrastructure that facilitates generation of test tools.